Specific screen content services, such as screen sharing and screen monitoring are becoming increasingly popular. Screen content puts different demands on video coding than, for example, encoding of camera captured content. Typical screen content includes windows with sharp edges, graphics and text, distinct colors and tends to have areas of the video picture that are not updated for long periods of time.
Screen sharing, which may also be referred to e.g. as desktop sharing, may be used in many different scenarios where it is desired to keep the bandwidth for screen sharing at a limited level. One common way of decreasing the bitrate for the screen sharing video without decreasing the overall static quality is to lower the picture rate. Static screen video, such as desktops and presentations, still tend to look reasonably good at a lower picture rate, while, at the same time, the complexity of the encoder and decoder may be reduced. The picture resolution in a screen sharing scenario is often 1080p or higher, which can be very resource consuming. Typically, the receiving device is also, simultaneously, performing other tasks, such as decoding a high quality video in a video conference scenario. By reducing the picture rate, the complexity of the coder and decoder can be significantly reduced.
However, when coding at a low picture rate in a scenario where a mouse pointer is used on the shared screen, the mouse pointer path may appear quite jerky and difficult to follow, which significantly lowers the screen sharing experience. Moreover, in a scenario where the mouse pointer is remotely controlled, such jerky movements become problematic, as it then becomes more difficult to control the mouse pointer. In addition, other 2D screen objects such as moving windows and scrolling text may be difficult for an observer to properly follow at a low picture rate.